week 2 in East Freo

Well, we had another incredible week here in Australia. Last weekend we drove up the coast and finally got to put our toes in the Indian Ocean. It was surprisingly warmer than I expected. Don't get me wrong, it was freezing, but kind of "late June in RI/MA" freezing. The water is a beautiful blue-green and the beach just goes on and on forever. Driving up the coast made me think of Highway 1 in California with the coast and vegetation. We wound up at this place on the coast called Hillary's Boat House. There are tons of shops, AQWA (western Australia's aquarium) and a big pay-as-you-play area that had 20 trampolines all together in one big area as well as all kinds of other equipment. You pay $8 to jump on your own trampoline for 12 minutes. The kids each had their own and practically touched the sky. They also had this funny blow up thing along the restaurants where 2 people each stand on their own perch and try to knock each other off with these big blown up columns...hilarious. Ella and Amelie did it and had a blast. First Ella knocked Amelie off and then Ella graciously got "knocked-off" by Amelie. We had tea with friends that afternoon and walked down to the Swan River. Ella and their son, Liam, wrestled and raced each other all afternoon. I don't know what that was all about, but they had a lot of fun doing it.

Sunday was Father's Day. So Rob got another well-deserved father's day celebration. He is an amazing father and has been such a support to his psychotic wife over the past months of preparations and meltdowns. I drove for the first time on the opposite side of the road to go get some baked goods for breakfast. It took ALOT of concentration. The blinkers and windshield wipers are switched so I spent a lot of time turning with the windshield wipers on (and it wasn't raining). We had a nice breakfast, got ready for church and still had a few minutes to jump on the trampoline before we walked to church. It was very refreshing to be leaving the house peacefully on a Sunday morning. Amelie and I went out to do some errands as a distraction. She has really been missing all her family and friends back home and needed a little one-on-one time with Mommy. She has decided that next time we go away for a year we should go to Newport so that we can still be close to home. We had a really nice time out until she fell in love with a "furr real" pet in K-Mart and was devastated for the next 1/2 hour that he couldn't come home to live with us. Maybe I should've just gotten it for her...???

School started up again on Monday. Did I already say that school uniforms rock?! We've had a lot of rain this past week and our wonderful, down the street neighbor, Lindy, offers to drive the girls or pick them up from school when it's raining. On Monday we walked down the street to pick up Ella's friend, Tia, to come to our house. We were invited in for a quick cup of tea and as we were getting ready to leave the sky opened up. So...we stayed for quite a bit longer. Fortunately Tia's little sister, Sienna, is in Amelie's class and Mia, also in her class, was there for a "play" so everyone had a great time. I had to call Rob to come pick us up after work. The trials of having just one car. Lesson: always bring your umbrella and raincoats this time of year in East Freo. The weather changes really fast.

Tuesday Amelie came home from school with a gold slip for being "courteous" and having "lovely manners". We are so proud of her. She definitely does have the loveliest manners of them all.

Very early Wednesday morning, before work, Rob went and did a boot camp work-out and played ultimate frisbee with some guys form church. Rob's planning to expand on that experience in his own blog entry. Pieter and I went to a play group at the church also on Wed morning. We had fun there singing lots of new songs, making a craft, running around and meeting some new people.

Thursday Ella and Amelie were each having a friend over after school and all day it poured and the wind was insane. Pieter and I had to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, by foot of course. We got soaked and our umbrella wouldn't stay right side in. It was so funny hiding under trees and building overhangs. In the end, I had to call Rob to come home early so he could pick up all the kids from school! Lindy could not fit them all in her car. It was so cute listening to Jessica and Charlie (Charlotte) speaking in our house after school with their lovely Australian accents. They all had a great time despite the rain.

Friday morning was all school assembly and Amelie's class was responsible for putting on a skit. What are the chances of our destined-to-be-a-star child's class being honored right as Amelie arrives. They sang bits of many known (and unknown) songs that went through the sounds of the alphabet and some combo sounds (ch, th, sh, etc...). Amelie, of course, learned ALL the words in less than 2 weeks and was happy as a clam up there in front of 500 people. At the end of it all, each teacher gets to pick a child or 2 to award a Merit Award. Well, Amelie's teacher chose her because she has adjusted so well to her new classroom. She got called up to the front, along with the other honorees, received an award from the principal and stood on stage to be applauded. Amelie is off to a great start at school! It was really very special. These assemblies happens every fortnight.

Pieter and I went to the Toy Library with Janelle and Abby (2). At the toy library you can check out 3 toys for a few weeks and then return them. What a great idea! Then we went to Target. It's very different from our Target, but has the same bulls-eye logo. It's easy to leave this Target NOT spending $100.

Friday night we had Bob Cibelli, a colleague/friend of Rob's from RI, over for dinner. We had a great time and the kids had fun hanging out with a fellow American. 7 other US colleagues of Rob are coming over for dinner on Monday.

Today we finally had sunshine...yipeeee! Rob had to go to work for the morning, so the kids and I hung outside with the bikes and played. Pieter and Amelie nurtured Baby Alive (poor Pieter) while Ella played with Pet Shops. Once Rob got home we went to a different beach in Fremantle. It was very windy so we brought our 2 kites which we had fun letting way out. There were people down there kite surfing and windsurfing really fast. Amelie found a dead seahorse on the beach that was about 5 inches long! How amazing is that to find a seahorse at the local beach?? We were all so excited. On the way home we stopped at The Oval in East Fremantle where they were having the high school championships for Aussie rules Football. This is an amazing sport where there are 16 people on the field for each team at a time. They wore no equipment and they are constantly in motion. The field is oval and it is HUGE! It seems to be a combination of football, basket ball and soccer. Pretty much anything goes, as far as I can tell.

The kids continue to love jumping on the trampoline and we are enjoying where we live. Rob is loving his job and has been listening to a lot of 60 minutes and books on tape to and from work. I'm having a great time hanging out with Pieter and doing a little bit of exploring. We live a nice, simple life which is exactly what I was looking forward to.

I will post photos to go with these stories tomorrow. It's bedtime. Sorry I haven't emailed much. We've been arranging our Christmas/summer holiday vacation in New Zealand!

Lots of love and miss you all. Marileen